ABSTRACT
The Americans were rather more generous than the Soviets. For instance, in 1985, Vitaly Yurchenko, who was deputy chief of the KGB's First Department and responsible for all its operations in North America including Canada, defected to the Americans in Rome. He was flown to the USA and rigorously debriefed by members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the American counterpart of the KGB. Yurchenko was only one of many important KGB or GRU agents who have made their way to the West. If Yurchenko's 'defection' was all part of a KGB ploy, it was a very cynical exercise because as part of the operation he betrayed at least two Americans who were working as KGB agents. This was the sort of thing the CIA were really looking for, and the Russian knew it. The CIA added to Yurchenko's depression by leaking his defection to the press after promising to keep his identity secret.
